UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  Agricultural  Experiment  Station 

College  of  Agriculture  E.  J.  Wickson,  Acting  Director 

BERKELEY,   CALIFORNIA 


CIRCULAR  No.  17. 

(January,  1906.) 

WHY  THE  FRIENDS  Of  AGRICULTURAL  PROGRESS  BELIEVE  THAT  AGRICULTURE 
SHOULD  AND  WILL  BE  TAUGHT  IN  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 

By  A.   C.   TRUE, 
Director  of  U.  S.  Office  of  Experiment  Stations. 


Read  at  the  joint  session  of  the  California  Teachers'  Association  and  the  State  Farmers'  Institute, 
held  at  the  University  of  California,  December  26-29, 1905. 


The  movement  for  the  introduction  of  instruction  in  agriculture  into 
secondary  and  primary  schools  is  passing  rapidly  from  the  stage  of 
agitation  to  that  of  action  and  realization.  The  agitation  of  this  subject 
in  this  country  began  in  the  days  when  Washington,  a  great  farmer  as 
well  as  a  great  general  and  statesman,  was  the  foremost  man  in  the  new 
republic.  It  has  ebbed  and  flowed  many  times  since  then  without 
leaving  any  lasting  impress  on  our  educational  system,  until  within  the 
last  decade  it  has  gathered  such  volume  and  assumed  such  substantial 
form  that  the  permanent  accomplishment  of  its  object  seems  assured. 

When  we  inquire  why  this  is  so  the  reasons  are  many,  but  they  may 
be  grouped  under  two  or  three  main  heads.  In  general,  the  claims  of 
agriculture  to  a  place  in  our  public-school  system  are  based  both  on  the 
economic,  social,  and  educational  needs  of  agriculture  and  agricultural 
people  as  related  to  our  present  civilization,  and  on  the  pedagogic 
requirements  of  a  school  system  which  shall  be  adapted  to  the  masses 
of  people  in  a  democratic  and  industrial  state,  and  to  the  symmetrical 
culture  of  the  mind  and  body  of  the  human  child.  In  a  word,  intelli- 
gent farmers  and  learned  pedagogues  approaching  the  subject  from 
their  respective  standpoints  now  meet  on  a  common  platform  and,  each 
party  using  the  arguments  appropriate  to  his  calling,  agree  that  agri- 
culture is  a  fit  and  useful  subject  to  be  taught  in  public  schools.  Hence, 
the  friends  of  agricultural  progress  in  this  country  have  good  reason 
to  believe  that  ere  long  agriculture  will  be  generally  taught  in  our 
schools  and  form  a  permanent  part  of  the  public-school  curriculum. 


It  may  therefore  be  appropriate  on  this  occasion,  when  farmers  and 
teachers  are  met  together  for  conference  on  educational  matters,  to 
briefly  review  some  of  the  arguments  advanced  nowadays  by  those  who 
favor  agricultural  instruction  in  the  public  schools. 

And  it  should  be  understood  at  the  outset  that  agriculture  is  here 
used  in  a  broad  sense  to  include  farming,  horticulture,  floriculture,  and 
forestry— the  village  garden  and  the  city  park,  as  well  as  the  ranch  or 
the  orchard. 

Let  the  farmers  speak  first,  for  they  furnish  the  pupils  and  support 
the  schools.    . 

An  old  argument,  which  has  not  altogether  lost  its  force,  is  that 
agriculture  is  a  great  and  fundamental  industry.  On  the  successful 
prosecution  of  agriculture  depends  the  continued  existence  and  pros- 
perity* of  the  whole  human  race.  By  agriculture  we  are  all  fed  and 
clothed  and  in  a  large  measure  are  provided  with  dwellings  and  the 
material  comforts  of  civilization.  Whether  we  consider  the  extent  of 
the  surface  of  our  globe  used  for  agriculture,  the  number  of  men  who 
work  on  the  farms  and  in  the  gardens  and  forests,  or  the  variety, 
amount,  and  value  of  the  products,  agriculture  is  a  great  subject,  and 
would  be  strangely  left  out  of  account  in  our  schools.  In  the  United 
States  alone,  leaving  out  the  forests,  about  850,000,000  acres  are  devoted 
to  agriculture;  there  are  nearly  6,000,000  farms,  on  which  10,000,000 
men  work  for  the  direct  support  of  a  rural  population  of  40,000,000 
souls.  The  value  of  these  farms  and  their  equipment  is  over  $20,000,- 
000,000,  and  the  value  of  their  products  in  1905  is  $6,415,000,000. 
"The  manufacturing  industries  that  depend  upon  farm  products  for 
raw  materials  employed  2,145,000  persons  in  1900,  and  used  a  capital 
of  $4,132,000,000." 

But  the  bigness  and  fundamental  character  of  agriculture  may  be 
used  chiefly  to  draw  attention  to  the  economic,  social,  and  educational 
needs  of  the  agricultural  people  as  a  large  section  of  the  community 
using  the  public  schools.  Economically  speaking,  the  farmer  or  horti- 
culturist of  to-day  and  of  the  future  must  be  a  more  intelligent  and 
better  informed  man  than  his  predecessor,  in  order  to  compete  on 
advantageous  terms  with  men  in  other  callings  and  to  secure  sure  and 
adequate  returns  for  his  labor  and  capital.  He  must  know  how  to 
permanently  maintain  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  what  crops  are  best 
adapted  to  his  locality,  how  to  select  and  improve  varieties,  what 
methods  of  cultivation,  irrigation,  and  drainage  will  enable  him  to 
make  the  most  productive  and  beneficial  use  of  the  available  water 
supply,  which  machines  are  best  adapted  to  particular  uses  and  how 
they  can  be  most  economically  maintained,  what  kinds  of  animals  are 
most  profitable  to  keep  and  how  they  can  be  improved,  what  methods 


of  storage,  packing,  and  marketing-  will  yield  the  best  results,  what 
remedies  to  apply  in  plant  or  animal  diseases,  how  to  prevent  ravages 
by  insects,  birds,  and  animals.  Merely  as  a  money-maker,  the  farmer 
can  not  afford  to  limit  his  knowledge  to  his  own  experience  and  the 
observation  of  his  family  and  his  neighbors.  He  must  have  some 
acquaintance  with  the  general  experience  in  such  matters  and  know  how 
to  utilize  information  gathered  and  printed.  This  requires  preliminary 
technical  training  in  school  at  an  early  age  as  the  surest  and  best 
preparation  for  a  successful  farm  practice. 

Moreover,  the  American  farmer  needs  to  learn  somewhere  that  in  the 
age  on  which  we  are  now  entering  the  cooperative  spirit  will  be  more 
and  more  essential  to  the  best  economic  conditions  of  agriculture,  as 
of  other  industries.  The  farmer  in  this  country  has  thus  far  been  the 
bulwark  of  an  individualistic  organization  of  industry  and  of.  society 
in  general.  But  we  are  beginning  to  see  that  excessive  individualism 
in  industry  is  resulting  in  an  overweening  aristocratic,  or  plutocratic, 
or  oligarchic  control  of  industries,  and  that  in  some  way  we  must 
evolve  the  true  cooperative  organization  of  our  industries  if  we  are  to 
perpetuate  the  democratic  character  of  our  social  and  legal  institutions. 
The  farmer  boy  studying  agriculture  with  his  comrades  in  the  public 
rchools  will  more  readily  grasp  the  idea  that  community  interests  are 
advantageous  in  agriculture,  and  we  shall  thus  produce  generations  of 
farmers  who  will  work  together  for  the  right  advancement  of  their 
industry. 

The  unintelligent  farmer  in  every  age  and  land  has  sunk  to  the  level 
of  a  stolid  and  unprogressive  peasantry,  and  in  this  way,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  great  statesmen  and  philanthropists,  the  general  level  of 
prosperity  among  farmers  has  been  kept  very  low.  One  of  the  most 
discouraging  effects  of  a  visit  to  the  Old  World  by  an  American  is  the 
observation  of  the  general  poverty  of  the  masses  after  all  the  centuries 
of  civilization— the  absolute  ruin  of  the  soil  in.  such  countries  as  Pales- 
tine, once  the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  the  almost  intolerable 
burdens  put  upon  farm  women  and  children  even  in  such  enlightened 
countries  as  Germany  and  Belgium,  the  extreme  want  often  seen  in 
rural  communities  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  Ireland.  Surely  we  do  not 
want  such  an  outcome  for  American  farmers. 

You  may  say  we  are  not  suffering  from  these  things  in  America. 
Then  perhaps  you  have  not  seen  the  conditions  among  negroes  and 
poor  whites  in  the  black  belt  of  the  South  Atlantic  and  Gulf  States,  or 
the  uplands  of  the  Alleghenies,  or  some  semi-arid  districts  of  the  Great 
Plains,  or  our  Mexican  population  in  the  Southwest.  Or  you  possibly 
may  not  know  that  by  ignorance  or  a  blind  disregard  of  universal 
experience  we  are  wiping  out  our  forests  East  and  West,  North  and 


—  4  - 

South,  thus  not  only  causing  a  dearth  of  timber,  but  making  conditions 
of  rainfall  and  soil-washing  which,  unless  speedily  prevented,  will  ruin 
absolutely  great  agricultural  regions.  Ask  Spain,  for  example,  if  this 
is  not  the  sure  result  of  cutting  off  forests  from  hillsides  and  mountains. 

In  a  strong  paper  before  the  recent  convention  of  the  Association  of 
American  Agricultural  Colleges  and  Experiment  Stations  at  Washing- 
ton, Professor  Hopkins  of  the  Illinois  College  of  Agriculture,  one  of  our 
leading  experts  on  soils,  said : 

"Are  there  fields  in  Virginia  where  once  great  crops  of  corn  were 
grown,  and  now  no  one  cares  to  pay  the  taxes?  Are  there  farms  in  the 
famous  Mohawk  Valley  that  can  be  purchased  for  less  than  the  farm 
buildings  once  cost?  Are  there  agricultural  lands  in  the  Western 
Reserve  which  were  sold  half  a  century  ago  for  $100  an  acre  now 
bought  for  $50  or  less?  Are  the  wonderful  prairie  soils  of  the  West 
producing  less  and  less?  To  all  these  questions  men  who  know  the 
facts  answer,  yes." 

Even  in  California  fertile  soil  and  favorable  climate  have  not  pre- 
vented the  coming  in  of  great  hindrances  to  successful  agriculture,  due 
to  the  ignorance  and  heedlessness  of  farm  owners  and  managers.  A 
one-crop  system  of  agriculture  has  here  produced  the  same  ruinous 
results  that  it  has  wherever  pursued  in  ancient  or  modern  times.  I  am 
informed  that  in  certain  regions  of  this  State  the  average  yield  of  wheat 
per  acre  has  fallen  from  17  to  3  sacks,  and  the  value  of  agricultural 
lands  from  $100  to  from  $35  to  $10  per  acre.  Irrigation  without  proper 
provision  for  drainage  is  a  growing  menace  to  the  prosperity  of  fruit- 
growing districts  when  the  value  of  orchards  and  vineyards  is  normally 
many  hundreds  of  dollars  per  acre. 

Irrigation  practice  and  the  extension  of  its  influences  are  seriously 
retarded  by  expensive  litigation  and  the  failure  to  provide  a  rational 
and  equitable  code  of  irrigation  laws.  Economic  and  social  problems 
connected  with  the  division  of  the  great  ranches  into  small  farms  to  be 
owned  by  their  occupants,  the  establishment  of  a  permanent  agricultural 
population  to  take  the  place  of  the  roving  and  often  alien  bands  of 
farm  laborers,  and  the  improvement  of  the  social  and  domestic  condi- 
tions of  farm  life  are  here  sufficient  to  call  for  the  best  thought  and  the 
most  active  cooperation  of  all  the  educational  and  moral  forces  of  the 
State  in  devising  ways  and  means  for  their  satisfactory  solution. 

The  reason  that  California's  agricultural  possibilities  have  not  been 
more  fully  realized  is  because  that  in  order  to  do  this  the  State  must 
have  a  farming  population  of  more  than  ordinary  breadth  of  vision  and 
more  than  average  capacity  and  training  in  the  conduct  of  agricultural 
affairs.  The  farmer  of  California  must  have  some  mechanical  skill,  as 
well  as  intelligence  in  the  selection  and  management  of  crops.    He  must 


know  how  to  lay  out  ditches  and  drains,  as  well  as  to  cultivate  and 
harvest  grains  and  fruits.  Often  his  water  supply  is  furnished  by 
pumping,  and  he  must  know  something  about  machinery  in  order  to 
determine  the  types  to  be  selected  and  the  kind  of  power  to  be  employed. 
The  markets  of  California  are  not  local.  They  include  the  whole  of 
this  country  and  are  beginning  to  include  many  other  countries.  The 
question  of  freight  rates  and  the  manner  of  preparing  products  for 
shipment  are  live  issues  in  a  sense  unknown  to  many  of  the  Eastern 
farmers.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  accident  that  California  is  to-day  pre- 
eminently the  State  of  cooperative  experiments.  It  is  forced  upon 
people  by  their  separation  from  the  rest  of  the  world  and  by  the  great 
interests  with  which  they  have  to  contend.  The  grain  growers  cooper- 
ate to  carry  on  experiments  for  the  improvement  of  the  product,  +o 
widen  their  markets,  and  to  secure  better  freight  rates.  The  fruit 
growers  cooperate  to  extend  their  trade  and  to  protect  themselves  from 
the  abuses  of  the  commission  merchant.  The  most  successful  irrigation 
communities  are  those  where  cooperation  has  had  the  largest  develop- 
ment, and  this  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  men  are  bound  together  by 
their  common  ties  of  dependence  on  the  river  first,  and  then  on  the 
canal. 

While  the  advantages  of  California  are  so  great  as  to  arouse  an 
incentive  to  realize  them  to  the  utmost  degree,  there  are  also  obstacles 
to  their  realization  almost  equal  in  magnitude.  The  working  out  of 
a  plan  whereby  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  rivers  can  be  used 
in  irrigation  without  injuring  the  navigation  interests  and  arousing 
their  fatal  antagonism,  is  one  example  of  the  problems  confronting 
agricultural  progress  in  this  State.  The  control  of  the  flood  waters  of 
these  rivers,  so  as  to  make  possible  the  cultivation  of  the  overflowed 
lands,  is  another.  I  am  informed  that  there  are  over  750,000  acres  of 
these  lands  and  that  the  portion  reclaimed  has  shown  enormous  returns, 
reaching  as  high  as  $500  an  acre  for  a  single  crop;  but  to  make  these 
complete  the  floods  of  the  river  must  be  controlled— in  itself  a  great 
engineering  problem;  after  that,  the  levees  and  drains  and  pumping 
works,  which  are  to  lower  the  water  plane  and  put  this  land  in  condition 
for  production,  must  be  laid  out  by  trained  agricultural  engineers.  If 
this  work  is  successfully  done,  it  means  a  great  increase  in  the  popula- 
tion and  productive  wealth  of  the  State;  but  the  possibilities  for  mis- 
takes, for  the  carrying  out  of  plans  that  will  involve  waste  and  loss,  or 
for  the  still  greater  danger  of  attempting  to  continue  development 
without  any  plan  at  all,  as  has  been  largely  done  in  the  utilization  of  the 
water  supplies  of  the  State,  are  so  great  that  every  educational  agency 
within  the  State  should  be  directed  toward  their  study  and  to  the 
training  of  the  great  body  of  the  State's  farmers  to  understand  and 
deal  with  them  in  a  wise  and  adequate  fashion. 


But  in  addition  to  the  economic  needs  of  agriculture  there  are  the 
social  needs  of  agricultural  people.  In  the  great  region  west  of  the 
Mississippi  River  our  rural  communities  are  passing  out  of  the  pioneer 
stage.  The  people  have  made  homes  on  the  land  and  must  now  look 
forward  to  the  steady  development  of  civilized  life  in  organized  com- 
munities. The  land  has  largely  passed  into  private  ownership,  grazing 
as  an  occupation  is  being  restricted,  one-crop  agriculture  is  passing 
away,  irrigation  is  becoming  more  prevalent,  the  great  ranches  are  being 
broken  up,  mining,  manufacturing,  and  commercial  enterprises  gen- 
erally are  settling  down  and  their  methods  are  conforming  more  and 
more  closely  to  those  of  business  in  old  communities.  The  free  and 
independent  life  of  the  range,  the  mining  camp,  and  the  frontier 
trading  post  has  gone  forever. 

In  obedience  to  the  general  influences  of  our  developing  civilization 
and  the  peculiar  tendencies  of  farming  under  irrigation,  our  Western 
farmers  are  inevitably  being  drawn  into  closer  social  ties,  and  the 
currents  of  their  lives  are  intermingling  with  those  of  the  communities 
in  which  they  live  in  Avays  which  as  yet  they  are  loth  to  recognize,  and 
the  general  results  of  which  they  are  as  a  rule  too  innocent  or  too 
ignorant  to  discern.  Too  often  already  in  a  blind  pride  of  independence 
they  are  either  isolating  themselves  from  the  great  world  of  progress 
or  foolishly  going  their  own  way  against  their  own  interests,  when  by 
joining  with  their  neighbors  in  enterprises  for  the  common  good  they 
might  benefit  both  themselves  and  others. 

Meanwhile,  the  other  forces  of  society  are  more  and  more  banding 
themselves  together  to  control  the  ballot-box,  legislation,  social  insti- 
tutions, and  the  general  conduct  of  affairs.  Unless  the  farmers  can  be 
so  educated  that  as  a  mass  they  will  have  the  cooperative  spirit,  have 
some  real  and  vital  understanding  of  community  of  interests,  and  know 
how  to  mingle  to  their  own  advantage  with  men  of  other  vocations, 
their  lives  will  forever  run  in  a  narrow  and  monotonous  channel  and 
the  control  of  even  their  own  affairs  will  largely  pass  into  the  hands  of 
other  men.  Isolation,  narrow-mindedness,  and  lack  of  appreciation  of 
the  broader  and  finer  aspects  of  human  life  have  ever  been  millstones 
about  the  necks  of  agricultural  people,  even  though  they  may  have 
possessed  much  of  rugged  honesty,  diligence,  and  patience. 

Fortunately  the  material  development  of  our  civilization  is  doing 
much  to  overcome  the  isolating  tendencies  of  farm  life.  Electricity,  the 
modern  magician,  is  bringing  the  telegraph,  telephones,  electric  lights 
and  power,  and  the  trolley  car  to  the  service  of  our  farmers  to  break 
down  the  barriers  of  isolation  and  put  them  in  touch  with  the  whole 
world;  and  the  free  mail  delivery  is  also  a  powerful  aid  in  the  same 
direction.     But  how  little  has  yet  been  done  to  provide  the  farmers' 


—  7  — 

families  with  libraries,  clubs,  and  refined  musical  and  other  entertain- 
ments and  to  make  the  surroundings  of  the  farm  home  and  the  rural 
village  attractive  and  elevating.  Or,  in  general,  to  cultivate  the  social 
or  community  instinct  according  to  the  conditions  of  the  rural  environ- 
ment with  a  view  to  making  country  life  in  every  essential  the  equal, 
if  not  the  superior,  of  city  life  from  the  standpoint  of  a  highly  refined 
and  civilized  humanity. 

But  if  our  agricultural  people  have  great  economic  and  social  needs, 
they  also  have  what  may  be  termed  educational  needs  which  are  even 
more  important  and  fundamental.  For  after  all  it  is  the  untrained 
mind  of  the  farmer  which  holds  him  down  to  a  dull  routine,  keeps  him 
in  isolation,  and  condemns  him  to  comparative  poverty.  And  by  edu- 
cation, I  do  not  of  course  mean  merely  the  imparting  of  education.  It 
is  rather  the  developing  of  the  mind,  the  broadening  and  clarifying 
of  the  mental  outlook,  the  giving  of  the  right  turn  to  the  mental  pro- 
cesses, the  strengthening  of  the  will  and  of  the  power  to  use  the  appro- 
priate means  to  accomplish  useful  ends.  The  education  which  the 
farmer  needs  is  that  which  will  give  him  some  real  appreciation  of  the 
progressive  and  scientific  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives,  will  arouse 
a  keen  interest  in  the  facts  and  principles  of  science  as  related  to  his 
own  vocation,  will  show  him  that  in  agriculture  is  an  ample  opportunity 
for  lifelong  studies  which  may  refresh  and  delight  the  mind,  as  well 
as  minister  to  material  success,  and  in  general  will  lift  agricultural 
practice  out  of  drudgery  into  the  domain  of  intelligent  and  hopeful 
labor. 

The  educated  and  useful  lawyer  devotes  days  and  nights  to  the  most 
arduous  toil  in  the  preparation  of  his  cases,  but  is  inspired  in  his  task 
by  the  keen  relish  for  the  conflict  of  wit  which  he  knows  will  come  when 
he  faces  the  opposing  counsel  before  judge  and  jury  in  the  court-room, 
or  he  is  buoyed  up  by  the  hope  that  he  will  right  some  great  wrong  or 
save  some  innocent  fellowman  from  undeserved  punishment.  It  is  not 
the  fee,  but  the  mental  satisfaction  in  his  work  that  makes  him  love  his 
profession  and  give  to  its  practice  the  best  energies  of  his  life. 

The  physician  studies  long  and  hard  in  preparation  for  his  profession, 
and  then  if  successful  is  more  and  more  absorbed  in  struggles  with 
suffering  and  death,  and  oppressed  with  an  ever-increasing  sense  of  the 
limitations  of  his  knowledge  and  his  skill.  But  his  heart  is  in  his  work, 
because  he  hopes  to  alleviate  pain  and  prolong  useful  lives,  if  only  he 
can  find  effective  ways  in  which  to  apply  scientific  principles  to  the 
special  needs  of  diseased  human  bodies. 

Is  there  any  good  reason  why  the  farmer,  who  uses  the  elements  and 
principles  of  the  natural  world  to  supply  mankind  with  food  and  cloth- 
ing and  whose  labor  makes  it  possible  for  civilized  life  to  exist  and 


—  8  — 

develop,  should  not  be  so  educated  that  he  will  find  in  his  business 
much  mental  stimulus  and  delight? 

So  the  farmer  comes  with  his  economic,  social,  and  educational  needs 
to  the  teacher  and  asks  what  the  schools  can  do  to  make  him  a  more 
successful  business  man,  a  better  citizen  and  neighbor,  a  more  intelligent 
and  happy  man.  And  he  expects  an  answer  based  on  an  intelligent  and 
sympathetic  appreciation  of  his  needs,  as  well  as  on  an  up-to-date 
understanding  of  the  functions  of  a  public-school  system  organized 
with  reference  to  the  requirements  of  the  masses  of  youth  in  a  demo- 
cratic state  and  ideals  of  education,  which,  however  firmly  they  may  be 
rooted  in  the  general  experience  of  mankind  in  the  past,  are  neverthe- 
less growing  and  expanding  in  the  light  and  air  of  the  twentieth  century 
after  Christ. 

The  educator  who  receives  the  farmer  in  this  spirit  can,  I  believe, 
give  an  encouraging  reply  to  his  appeal.  The  American  public-school 
system  has  in  recent  years  entered  on  a  new  stage  of  development. 
Framed  originally  after  old-world  models  designed  chiefly  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  favored  few  in  aristocratic  communities  who  were 
destined  to  be  the  leaders  in  church  and  state,  it  naturally  developed 
at  first  chiefly  along  literary  lines. 

The  first  step  was  to  overcome  the  prejudice  against  giving  the  most 
elementary  education  freely  to  all  the  children.  Then  it  became  neces- 
sary to  keep  pace  with  the  mighty  tide  of  civilization  which  swept  across 
the  continent  and  was  greatly  augmented  by  the  millions  of  immigrants 
from  foreign  lands.  It  is  a  wonderful  conquest  which  our  public 
schools  have  had  in  overcoming  illiteracy  over  so  vast  an  area,  and  yet 
this  achievement  is  not  complete,  for  the  last  census  showed  that  about 
one  in  ten  of  the  men  of  voting  age  in  this  republic  could  neither  read 
nor  write. 

For  many  years  the  chief  effort  of  our  educational  managers  was  to 
plant  a  school  house  at  every  crossroads  so  that  no  country  child  might 
be  deprived  of  the  chance  to  get  at  least  the  rudiments  of  an  education. 
In  some  respects  this  effort  went  too  far.  The  school  districts  were 
often  made  too  small  to  permit  the  establishment  of  effective  schools, 
and  now  a  reaction  has  begun  in  favor  of  consolidating  the  rural 
schools,  bringing  the  child  to  the  school  instead  of  the  school  to  the 
child. 

Then  came  the  struggle  to  establish  the  principle  that  free  public 
education  was  to  extend  beyond  the  elementary  schools  to  the  secondary 
school  and  even  to  the  college.  The  newer  communities  west  of  the 
Alleghenies  gave  the  readiest  welcome  to  this  new  educational  propa- 
ganda, and  it  is  in  them  that  the  public  high  school  and  the  State 
college  and  university  have  had  their  most  complete  and  successful 
development. 


—  9  — 

As  millions  of  children  came  to  be  in  the  elementary  schools  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  in  the  high  schools,  it  became  apparent  that  the 
old  literary  curricula  and  the  general  atmosphere  of  school  life  on  the 
old  basis  created  a  distaste  for  the  manual  occupations  in  which  the 
vast  majority  of  all  the  students  in  public  schools  must  engage  during 
their  adult  life. 

And  thus  the  problem  has  presented  itself  to  our  educators  of  so 
changing  the  public  schools  as  to  bring  their  work  into  vital  relations 
with  the  real  life  and  activities  of  the  masses  of  our  people.  This  is 
the  stage  of  educational  development  in  the  midst  of  which  we  are 
to-day. 

Naturally  the  movement  for  the  remodeling  of  our  school  system  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  industrial  life  had  its  most  active  develop- 
ment first  in  the  cities,  where  the  school  system  was  most  highly  organ- 
ized and  where  the  very  rapid  increase  in  the  extent  and  variety  of 
mechanic  arts  and  manufactures  created  a  tremendous  demand  for 
youthful  workers  whose  minds  had  been  prepared  to  deal  with  the 
problems  presented  in  such  pursuits.  Already  provision  for  the  teach- 
ing of  mechanic  arts  in  the  public  schools  is  made  in  40  states.  While 
in  1890  there  were  only  37  cities  of  8,000  population  and  over  in  which 
manual  training  was  taught  in  the  public  schools,  in  1902  there  were 
270  such  cities.    San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles  are  among  this  number. 

But  much  more  important  than  the  actual  changes  in  school  curricula 
already  made  under  the  impulse  of  the  industrial  forces  of  the  country 
is  the  result  which  has  attended  the  study  of  the  fundamental  prob- 
lems of  education  by  our  leading  educational  authorities  in  recent  years. 
For,  after  all,  it  is  right  ideals  of  education  that  we  need  to  have.  The 
training  of  the  man  which  will  best  fit  him  to  use  his  powers  for  good 
ends  and  to  live  the  highest  and  best  kind  of  life  is  after  all  the  business 
of  the  school.  We  do  not  want  the  children  of  this  free  republic  to  be 
trained  to  run  in  grooves  made  for  them  by  their  environment,  whether 
in  the  home  or  in  the  school.  The  elementary  and  secondary  schools 
are  not  to  make  farmers  or  carpenters  or  lawyers,  but  good  citizens  and 
useful  men  and  women  likely  to  become  capable  and  willing  workers  in 
any  line  to  which  in  more  mature  years  they  may  devote  themselves. 

As  a  friend  of  the  farmers  and  all  classes  of  good  people,  I  listen 
therefore  with  the  profoundest  attention  to  what  our  educational  lead- 
ers have  to  say  about  the  ideals  of  education  best  adapted  to  create 
schools  for  making  useful  and  happy  men  and  women  out  of  the  boys 
and  girls  of  our  day.  And  so  I  invite  your  attention  to  a  summing  up 
of  this  matter  by  Paul  H.  Hanus,  professor  of  the  history  and  art  of 
teaching  in  Harvard  University,  in  his  book  entitled  "A  Modern 
School": 


—  10  — 

"The  education  demanded  by  a  democratic  society  to-day  is  an  edu- 
cation that  prepares  a  youth  to  overcome  the  inevitable  difficulties 
that  stand  in  the  way  of  his  material  and  spiritual  advancement;  an 
education  that,  from  the  beginning,  promotes  his  normal  physical 
development  through  the  most  salutary  environment  and  appropriate 
physical  training;  that  opens  his  mind  and  lets  the  world  in  through 
every  natural  power  of  observation  and  assimilation;  that  cultivates 
handpower  as  well  as  headpower;  that  inculcates  the  appreciation  of 
beauty  in  nature  and  in  art,  and  insists  on  the  performance  of  duty  to 
self  and  to  others;  an  education  that  in  youth  and  early  manhood, 
while  continuing  the  work  already  done,  enables  the  youth  to  discover 
his  own  powers  and  limitations,  and  that  impels  him  through  oft- 
repeated  intellectual  conquests  or  other  forms  of  productive  effort  to 
look  forward  to  a  life  of  habitual  achievement  with  his  head  or  his 
hands,  or  both ;  that  enables  him  to  analyze  for  himself  the  intellectual, 
economic,  and  political  problems  of  his  time,  and  that  gives  the  insight, 
the  interest,  and  the  power  to  deal  with  them  as  successfully  as  possible 
for  his  own  advancement  and  for  social  service;  and,  finally,  that 
causes  him  to  realize  that  the  only  way  to  win  and  to  retain  the  prizes 
of  life,  namely,  wealth,  culture,  leisure,  honor,  is  an  ever-increasing 
usefulness,  and  thus  makes  him  feel  that  a  life  without  growth  and 
without  service  is  not  worth  living. 

"That  is  to  say,  the  education  demanded  by  democratic  society  in 
modern  times  must  be  a  preparation  for  an  active  life.  Now,  the  only 
real  preparation  for  life's  duties,  opportunities,  and  privileges  is  par- 
ticipation in  them  so  far  as  they  can  be  rendered  intelligible,  interest- 
ing, and  accessible  to  children  and  youth  of  school  age;  and  hence  the 
first  duty  of  all  education  is  to  provide  this  participation  as  fully  and 
as  freely  as  possible.  From  the  beginning,  such  an  education  can  not 
be  limited  to  the  school  arts— reading,  writing,  ciphering.  It  must 
acquaint  the  pupil  with  his  material  and  social  environment,  in  order 
that  every  avenue  to  knowledge  may  be  opened  to  him,  and  every 
incipient  power  to  receive  appropriate  cultivation.  Any  other  course 
is  a  postponement  of  education,  not  education.  Such  a  postponement 
is  a  permanent  loss  to  the  individual  and  to  society.  It  is  a  perversion 
of  opportunity,  and  an  economic  waste. 

"We  have  but  lately  learned  this  lesson.  We  have  learned  that 
reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  English  grammar— the  school  arts- 
constitute  only  the  instruments  of  an  elementary  education  and  not  edu- 
cation itself.  To  concentrate  a  child's  attention  on  the  school  arts 
during  eight  or  nine  years  is  to  exaggerate  their  importance,  is  to  regard 
them  as  an  end  in  themselves,  instead  of  a  means  to  an  end.  It  is  true 
the  school  arts  must  be  learned;  the  pupil's  later  progress  will  depend 


—  11  — 

largely  on  his  command  over  oral,  written,  and  printed  speech,  but  it 
does  not  require  eight  or  nine  years  of  almost  exclusive  devotion  to  the 
school  arts  to  acquire  this  command.  Such  exclusive  devotion  to  the 
school  arts  cuts  the  pupil  off  from  the  very  education  we  are  aiming  at, 
namely,  preparation  for  life  interests  through  participation  in  them. 
Eight  or  nine  years  spent  on  the  school  arts,  together  with  book 
geography  and  a  little  United  States  history,  have  usually  left  the 
pupil  at  about  fourteen  years  of  age  without  a  permanent  interest  in 
nature,  or  in  human  institutions  and  human  achievements  whether  in 
the  field  of  literature,  science,  and  art,  or  in  the  industrial,  commercial, 
and  political  life  of  his  time ;  and,  what  is  worse,  without  much  inclina- 
tion to  acquire  such  interest  by  further  study. 

' '  This  is  the  natural  result  of  an  attempt  to  prepare  for  life  without 
using  life's  opportunities  as  the  source  and  means  of  such  preparation. 
Accordingly  we  have  changed  our  plan.  Through  elementary  natural 
science  we  are  bringing  nature  into  the  school-room  and  we  go  out  to 
meet  it;  we  bring  literature,  history,  civics,  art,  manual  training,  and 
an  elementary  study  of  industry  and  commerce  into  the  school  as  a 
means  of  preparation  for  life,  instead  of  'preparing'  our  pupils  for 
contact  with  these  sources  of  inspiration,  guidance,  and  training  in  an 
indefinite  future.     *     *     * 

"We  seem  to  hesitate  about  such  training  at  public  expense  because 
it  is  useful !  Indeed,  we  have  beaten  about  the  bush  a  good  deal  to  find 
other  than  utilitarian  arguments  to  support  the  plea  for  instruction  in 
sewing,  cooking,  household  sanitation,  and  decoration— the  household 
arts  generally.  I  am  prepared  to  admit  that  these  pursuits  have 
important  general  educational  value.  But  the  chief  reason  why  they 
should  be  taught  is  their  supreme  usefulness  to  everybody,  not  less 
universally  useful  in  their  own  sphere  than  reading,  writing,  and 
ciphering— the  'school  arts'— are  in  theirs. 

"I  hope  we  shall  soon  go  a  step  farther,  therefore,  and  make  liberal 
provision  for  elementary  training  in  agricultural,  industrial,  and  com- 
mercial pursuits,  in  addition  to  general  manual  training  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  grammar  school  and  also  at  the  upper  end  of  the  high  school. 
This  is  a  new  'enrichment'  of  the  program  of  study,  much  needed. 
And  it  will  not  add  to  the  burdens  of  the  pupils." 

How  encouraging  such  sentiments  are :  They  show  that  the  movement 
for  industrial  education  has  a  substantial  pedagogic  basis.  The  friends 
of  agricultural  education  should  never  lose  sight  of  this.  We  are  not 
claiming  anything  special  for  agriculture  as  a  particular  art.  It  is 
rather  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts  (including  domestic  arts)  as 
universal  factors  of  human  life  that  we  demand  shall  have  recognition 
in  our  public-school  system. 


—  12  — 

Under  the  terms  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts  in  their  broadest 
application  may  fairly  be  included  all  the  dealings  of  man  with  the 
natural  world  (*.  e.,  with  the  mineral  kingdom  and  with  plants  and 
animals),  for  his  own  advantage;  and  in  a  true  sense  agriculture  and 
mechanic  arts  are  just  as  much  a  part  of  the  common  life  of  mankind 
as  music,  language,  or  mathematics.  For  this  reason  studies  in  agri- 
culture and  mechanic  arts  should  be  a  constituent  element  of  the  entire 
educational  system.  In  the  lower  schools  we  should  not  seek  to  intro- 
duce the  teaching  of  particular  industries  and  trades  in  agriculture  and 
mechanic  arts,  but  rather  instruction  in  those  facts  and  principles 
which  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  agriculture  or  mechanic  arts  and  those 
operations  which  form  a  natural  introduction  to  all  agricultural  indus- 
tries and  mechanical  pursuits. 

The  training  of  the  hand  and  of  the  practical  sense  which  may  be 
given  through  instruction  directly  related  to  industries  is  an  essential 
and  valuable  feature  of  a  well-rounded  education  and  should  be  given 
to  all  children,  whether  they  are  destined  to  make  manual  arts  their 
iifework  or  not.  "We  will  not  permit  the  adherents  of  old  educational 
ideals  to  set  an  industrial  education  over  against  what  they  call  a 
cultural  education.  It  is  an  education  truly  and  completely  cultural 
which  we  demand,  and  our  insistence  is  that  no  education  can  be  com- 
pletely cultural  which  does  not  contain  the  manual  or  industrial  element. 

It  is  not  the  old  trade-school  which  we  wish  to  revive  and  make  a 
part  of  our  public-school  system.  The  object  is  not  to  cut  out  the  old 
studies  which  educators  agree  should  be  included  in  all  elementary 
and  secondary  courses,  but  rather  by  a  more  judicious  selection  of  the 
topics  to  be  taught  in  the  various  branches,  make  room  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  the  public-school  courses  by  the  introduction  of  instruction  in 
agriculture,  mechanic  arts,  and  domestic  science.  The  elimination  of 
useless  topics  and  the  judicious  employment  of  the  elective  system  in 
the  high  school  will  allow  agriculture  to  be  taught  in  an  effective  way 
and  make  the  atmosphere  of  the  school-room  favorable  to  the  cultivation 
of  a  love  for  country  life.  That  is  why  we  stand  with  such  progressive 
teachers  as  Prof.  Frank  M.  McMurry,  of  the  Teachers'  College  of 
Columbia  University,  who  in  a  recent  article  on  "  Advisable  Omissions 
from  the  Elementary  Curriculum"  says,  "Life  is  too  full  of  large 
specific  ends  to  be  attained  to  allow  time  for  work  which  has  no  really 
tangible  object";  and  Prof.  Maxwell,  Superintendent  of  Schools  in 
Greater  New  York,  who  as  President  of  the  National  Educational  Asso- 
ciation, said  last  summer  at  Asbury  Park : 

"Again  take  the  teaching  of  agriculture.  While  our  soil  seemed  inex- 
haustible in  fertility  as  in  extent,  the  need  of  such  teaching  was  not  felt. 
Now,  however,  we  are  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  lands  that  produce 


—  13  — 

only  under  irrigation.  The  rural  schools  have  added  to  our  difficulties 
by  teaching  their  pupils  only  what  seemed  most  necessary  for  success 
when  they  should  move  to  the  city.  The  farms  of  New  England  are,  in 
large  measure,  deserted  or  are  passing  into  alien  hands.  To  retain  the 
country  boy  on  the  land  and  to  keep  our  soil  from  exhaustion,  it  is  high 
time  that  all  our  rural  schools  turned  their  attention,  as  some  of  them 
have  done,  to  scientific  agriculture.  There  is  no  study  of  greater 
importance.  There  is  none  more  entertaining.  If  every  country  boy 
could  become,  according  to  his  ability,  a  Burbank,  increasing  the  yield 
of  the  fruit  tree,  the  grain  field,  and  the  cotton  plantation,  producing 
food  and  clothing  where  before  there  was  only  waste,  what  riches  would 
be  added  to  our  country,  what  happiness  would  be  infused  into  life! 
To  obtain  one  plant  that  will  metamorphose  the  field  or  the  garden, 
ten  thousand  plants  must  be  grown  and  destroyed.  To  find  one 
Burbank,  ten  thousand  boys  must  be  trained,  but  unlike  the  plants,  all 
the  boys  will  have  been  benefited.  The  gain  to  the  nation  would  be 
incalculable.  Scientific  agriculture,  practically  taught,  is  as  necessary 
for  the  rural  school  as  is  manual  training  for  the  city  school. ' ' 

The  teacher  can  also  now  say  for  the  encouragement  of  the  farmer 
that  owing  largely  to  the  work  of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture  and  the  agricultural  colleges  and  experiment  stations  in 
California  and  the  other  states,  there  is  now  a  large  body  of  definite 
knowledge  which  may  be  called  the  principles  of  agriculture.  And 
this  knowledge  has  been  already  more  or  less  completely  reduced  to 
pedagogic  form  for  use  in  various  grades  of  schools. 

Such  elementary  textbooks  as  Burkett  and  Hill's  Agriculture  for 
Beginners;  Goff  and  Mayne's  First  Principles  of  Agriculture;  Good- 
rich's First  Book  of  Farming;  Bailey's  Principles  of  Agriculture; 
Brook's  Agriculture  (a  correspondence  course),  may  serve  as  a  good 
introduction  to  the  more  advanced  works  such  as  Hunt's  Cereals  in 
America;  Jordan's  Feeding  of  Animals;  King's  Soil,  Irrigation  and 
Drainage,  and  Physics  of  Agriculture;  Decher's  Dairying;  Snyder's 
Chemistry  of  Plant  and  Animal  Life;  Mead's  Irrigation  Institutions; 
Taylor's  Agricultural  Economics,  etc. 

For  general  reference  books  we  have  the  new  International  Encyclo- 
pedia, Bailey's  Encyclopedia  of  Horticulture,  Wilcox  and  Smith's 
Encyclopedia  for  Farmers,  Bailey's  Garden  Craft  and  Rural  Science 
Series,  the  Yearbooks  and  Farmers'  Bulletins  of  the  U.  S.  Department 
of  Agriculture,  and  the  bulletins  of  the  State  experiment  stations,  etc. 

If  agricultural  textbooks  do  not  already  exist  which  are  especially 
adapted  to  California,  the  publishers  will  have  them  prepared  just  as 
soon  as  your  school  authorities  call  for  them.  Of  course  improvements 
will  be  made  in  the  books  and  appliances  for  agricultural  instruction 


—  14  — 

just  as  they  are  constantly  being  made  in  those  for  the  natural  sciences 
and  even  the  ancient  languages.  I  observe  that  the  Latin  textbooks 
my  children  are  using  now  are  quite  different  from  those  I  studied  as 
a  boy,  or  even  those  I  used  as  a  teacher\af ter  I  graduated  from  college. 
No  teacher  can  excuse  himself  from  teaching  agriculture  to-day  because 
there  are  no  books  or  helps  to  such  instruction. 

Moreover,  we  already  have  successful  examples  of  the  teaching  of 
agriculture  in  the  schools.  Thus  secondary  and  primary  agricultural 
instruction  has  been  given  for  many  years  in  the  schools  of  France, 
Belgium,  Denmark,  and  Germany,  and  in  recent  years  in  Massachusetts, 
California,  Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Wisconsin,  and  Alabama,  and  to 
negroes  at  Hampton,  Va.,  and  Tuskegee,  Ala.,  and  a  number  of  other 
schools  for  this  race  in  different  Southern  States,  and  already  thousands 
of  children  in  the  elementary  schools  in  this  country  are  receiving 
instruction  relating  to  agriculture,  often  under  the  name  of  nature 
study. 

Thus  our  argument  is  complete.  The  farmer  boy  or  girl  comes  to  the 
public  school  with  fundamental  economic,  social,  and  educational  needs 
that  should  be  met  with  special  training  in  agricultural  lines.  The 
teacher  comes  to  the  public  schools  with  new  ideals  of  education  that 
make  the  industrial  element  an  essential  of  sound  education  and  with 
an  abundance  of  material  for  useful  instruction  in  agriculture.  Surely 
old-time  traditions  and  prejudices  can  not  long  bar  the  way  to  the 
effective  teaching  of  agriculture  in  our  public  schools. 

But  some  one  rises  up  and  says  it  will  cost  too  much  to  give  farmers' 
children  such  instruction  in  the  public  schools.  I  can  not  believe  that 
such  an  argument  will  have  much  weight  with  the  American  public  in 
general,  or  with  the  California  public  in  particular. 

No  doubt  Ave  must  pay  more  for  our  public  schools  in  the  future  than 
we  have  in  the  past.  We  must  have  better  schoolhouses,  better  trained 
teachers,  and  more  apparatus  and  illustrative  material,  and  we  must 
pay  the  bills  for  these  things.  But  it  has  been  proved  over  and  over 
again  that  education  of  the  right  kind  promotes  industrial  wealth,  as 
well  as  the  general  well-being  of  mankind.  And  if  the  states  where  the 
public-school  system  of  the  past  with  all  its  limitations  and  defects  has 
been  most  thorough  in  its  work,  have  been  the  states  where  the  general 
level  of  material  prosperity  has  risen  highest,  and  no  man  who  knows 
the  facts  will  deny  this,  surely  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  an  educa- 
tion which  aims  directly  to  promote  industrial  efficiency,  as  the  new 
education  does,  will  more  than  pay  for  its  increased  cost  by  the  increased 
wealth  which  it  will  produce.  If  literary  education  has  been  a  very 
profitable  investment  for  the  American  public,  industrial  education  is 
likely  to  prove  a  bonanza. 


